[Powerline] I take it as a given that Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma paid the Biden family a $3 million bribe. That follows from the facts that 1) Hunter Biden doesn’t speak Ukrainian or have any experience in Ukrainian business, 2) Hunter Biden has no experience in the natural gas industry, 3) Burisma nevertheless paid Biden more than $83,000 a month (!) for three years to serve on its board of directors, a role that usually is only nominally compensated, and 4) Joe Biden at the time was responsible for Ukraine policy in the Obama administration. But there may be even more to the scandal than that.

John Solomon has been an indispensable source here, in part because of his own Freedom of Information Act requests. His most recent revelations concern Burisma’s relationship with the U.S. Agency for International Development, an arm of the State Department:

A State Department official who served in the U.S. embassy in Kiev told Congress that the Obama administration tried in 2016 to partner with the Ukrainian gas firm that employed Hunter Biden but the project was blocked over corruption concerns.

George Kent, the former charge d’affair at the Kiev embassy, said in testimony released Thursday that the State Department’s main foreign aid agency, known as USAID, planned to co-sponsor a clean energy project with Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian gas firm that employed Hunter Biden as a board member.

At the time of the proposed project, Burisma was under investigation in Ukraine for alleged corruption. ...

Kent testified he personally intervened in mid-2016 to stop USAID’s joint project with Burisma because American officials believed the corruption allegations against the gas firm raised concern.

The time line is important here. Hunter Biden started getting money from Burisma in 2014. In February 2016, Burisma’s top-shelf international lobbying firm used Hunter’s name to fast-track an appointment with a senior State Department official to deny reports of corruption involving Burisma:

#2
How come every country that the war mongers I mean the peaceful Democrat liberals invaded for Russia I mean invaded are all now falling under Russian control buying their weapon systems.etc and the U.S. Military is still guarding Russian energy projects in iraq? Seems like it is just another in last being added back to russia! Hey we are down approximately.7 states in country and were not invited to Ukraine peace talks so what is the real story? Serbia New Knesset coming at ya!

#1
So they lost the family station wagon, but kept the full-sized luxury car? Hum... actually, I might do that to since, as the Capri got an astounding-for-the-time 21 MPG and could do zero to sixty in 22 seconds. (Dad's got to entertain himself some how while recovering!)

#3
Her daddy couldn’t continue to do the job he had before the heart attack, but he found other ways to earn a paycheck. The honourable senator’s mother was not entirely on her own supporting the family of six on a minimum wage job — hers was the supplementary income. From Wikipedia:

Warren was born Elizabeth Ann Herring in Oklahoma City on June 22, 1949,[3][4][5][6] the fourth child of middle-class parents Pauline (née Reed, 1912–1995) and Donald Jones Herring (1911–1997). Warren has described her family as teetering "on the ragged edge of the middle class" and "kind of hanging on at the edges by our fingernails".[7][8] She had three older brothers and was raised Methodist.[9][10]

Warren lived in Norman, Oklahoma, until she was 11 years old, when her family moved back to Oklahoma City.[8] When she was 12, her father, a salesman at Montgomery Ward,[8] had a heart attack, which led to many medical bills as well as a pay cut because he could not do his previous work.[5] After leaving his sales job, he worked as a maintenance man for an apartment building.[11] Eventually, the family's car was repossessed because they failed to make loan payments. To help the family finances, her mother found work in the catalog order department at Sears.[5] When she was 13, Warren started waiting tables at her aunt's restaurant.[12][13]

[Seattle Times] More than a year ago, Seattle City Councilmember Lisa Herbold teared up as she voted to repeal a per-employee tax on high-grossing businesses that would have raised money for homeless housing and services.

"This is not a winnable battle at this time," Herbold said, referring to a referendum on the so-called head tax bankrolled by Amazon and other large companies. "The opposition has unlimited resources" to spend on turning voters against the tax.

Fast forward to this year’s council elections, and that picture may have changed. An attempt by the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce to remake the council and ensure policies like the head tax would never return has been soundly rejected by a progressive-minded electorate, despite Amazon pouring nearly $1.5 million into seven district races through the chamber’s no-limit political-action committee (PAC).

[Bellingcat] Last month, leading anti-kleptocracy voices in the U.S., Ukraine, Russia, and elsewhere sounded the alarm about a massive donation that Len Blavatnik, a Soviet-born businessman with close ties to sanctioned Russian figures, made to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Blavatnik’s donation was, as one expert said, a clear instance of the “soft enabling of kleptocracy,” and fit firmly in Blavatnik’s history of using his funds for “image launder[ing].”

As new documents show, Blavatnik’s financial offer to CFR wasn’t the only substantial donation he’s made recently.

According to new filings with the Federal Election Commission, Blavatnik — who is estimated to be worth approximately $19 billion, and who has U.S. citizenship — has been offering record-breaking donations to American politicians and political committees on both sides of the aisle. Thus far, it appears that Democrats and Republicans alike are willing to take his money, despite major concerns from those who’ve followed Blavatnik’s career and/or those who work in the sphere of anti-kleptocracy.

The latter actually attacked the treasury and nearly destroyed the currency of Britain. The former angled himself a piece of the post-Soviet pie in the 1990s. Since then, he's engaged in exactly the same kinds of legal, high-risk corporate buccaneering-- cf Lyondell Basel's restructuring-- that every other major American private equity or hedge fund billionaire has been engaged in. This last phase of Blavatnik's career- the last 20 years or so-- puts him in the same category as Carl Icahn or Boone Pickens.

If there is a moral difference between Soros and Blavatnik, its to be found in how they spend their billions.

Blavatnik has given his money to great and noble institutions like Harvard and IIRC London's wonderful Courtauld Institute and IIRC Slade School of Art. He supports great scholars and fine artists.

[Red State]...NSA Robert O’Brien says Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a top witness in the House impeachment inquiry, will be removed from his post at the White House National Security Council.

...Honestly, getting removed from the NSC is the least of Vindman’s worries. When he’s done being a pawn for Adam Schiff, he’s almost certainly going to bear scrutiny under the UCMJ and/or by the DOJ for his illegal leaking. What he shared with the whistle-blower was top secret information and Vindman has no special immunity to go outside of the chain of command with his complaints.

#6
As an Idaho transplant from Kaliphornia to a town near Boise, I can absolutely vouch for the patriotism of the citizens. Except for the North End. Friggin hippies and their lefty ways metastasize the first chance they get.

[Breitbart] Appearing Saturday on CNN’s Axe Files, Cindy McCain reacted to recent happenings in Washington, D.C., saying the United States needs her late husband, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), "more than ever."

#11
Resorting to pulling out the widows? Really??? He was probably honorable at one time in his life, but he dies a bitter hating old man who cared more about his hate than he did our nation. To be giving on this day I'll blame it on senility..

#21
Re the remarks about the flight deck fire: Despite some rumors to the contrary, the USS Forrestal fire was NOT his fault.He was there, and barely escaped with his life - he was struck by fragments from an exploding bomb. 134 men did die in the fire.

As I said, I used to support him. But there is enough to complain about without additional snarky remarks.

A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.